Union ranks fall in labor fight states

Union membership fell to its lowest levels since the Great Depression in 2012, with pronounced drops in two Midwestern states where unions lost major political battles in recent years.

Only 11.3 percent of workers belong to a union, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report out Wednesday, down from 11.8 percent in 2011. Overall, unions had 400,000 fewer members in 2012 than they did in 2011. Half of that drop came from public sector workers, including firefighters and teachers. A much larger percentage of public sector workers — about 35 percent — are unionized than private sector workers — 6.6 percent.

Text Size

-

+

reset

But the drops in Indiana and Wisconsin, where unions unsuccessfully fought rollbacks in collective bargaining rights, were much larger. Indiana fell from 12.4 percent to 10 percent, and Wisconsin dropped from 14.1 percent to 12 percent. Those were the second- and fourth-largest declines, percentage point-wise, in the country. (Missouri tied with Indiana, and West Virginia matched Wisconsin.)

“We know this is the wrong direction for Wisconsin and the wrong direction for the United States in terms of wage stabilization building a strong middle class,” said Wisconsin AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Stephanie Bloomingdale. “If people don’t have a voice in the workplace through a union, they don’t have a shot at the middle class.”

Bloomingdale said the union movement would continue to fight “Governor Scott Walker and his right-wing allies,” including the Koch Brothers, who fund a variety of conservative causes and poured millions into Walker’s campaign when he battled a union-led recall attempt in 2012. The recall failed.

In Wisconsin, the drop was most pronounced among public-sector workers, the target of a 2011 push by Walker.

Jeff Harris, a spokesman for the AFL-CIO in Indiana, said the drop-off there isn’t solely the result of a right-to-work law passed in 2011, but of a long-term assault on collective bargaining.

“For the last eight years, we’ve endured one of the most anti-union governors in history,” Harris said, referring to former governor Mitch Daniels. With one of his first acts in office, Daniels struck at public-sector workers’ bargaining rights. He later privatized large swaths of state government.

The “full extent” of the right-to-work law hasn’t actually been felt yet, Harris said, since existing union contracts still have provisions allowing the unions to collect dues from non-members. When the existing contracts expire, those provisions will become illegal.